478 CHARACTER OF A SOUND, understand your own religion. BeChristians indeed, and youwill have the comforts indeed of Christianity, andwill find that its fruits and joys are not dreams, and shadows, and imaginations, if you content not yoursëlves with an imagination, dream, and shadow of Christianity, or with some clouded spark, or buried seed. The Characters. I. 1. A Christian indeed (by which I still mean a sound, con- firmed Christian) is one that contenteth not himself to have a seed or habit offaith, but he liveth by faith, as the sensualist by sight or sense. Not putting out the eye of sense, nor living as if he had no body, or lived not in a world of sensible objects; but as he is a reasonable creature, whichexalteth him above the sensitive na- ture, so faith is the true information of his reason, about those high and excellent things, which must take him up above things sensi- ble. He hath so firma beliefof the life to come, as procured by Christ, and promised in the gospel, as that it serveth him for the government of his soul, as his bodily sight doth for the conduct of his body. I say not, that he is assaulted with no temptations, nor that his faith is perfect in degree, nor that believing moveth him as passionately as sight or sense would do ; but it dotheffectu- ally move him, through the course ançl tenor of his life, to do those things for the life to come, which he would 'do if he saw the glory of heaven, and to shun those things, for the avoiding of'damna- tidn, which he would shun if he saw the flames of hell. Whether he do these things so fervently or not, his belief is powerful, effec- tual, and victorious. Let sight and sense invite him to their ob- jects, and entice him to sin and forsake his God; the objects of faith shall prevail against them, in the bent of an even, a constant, and resolved life. It is things unseen which he taketh for his treas- ure, and which have his heart, and hope, and ehiefest labors. All things else which he bath to do, are but subservient to his faith and heavenly interest, as his sensitive faculties are ruled by his reason. 'His faith is not only his opinion, which teacheth him to choose what church or party he will be of; but it is his intel- lectual light, by which he liveth, and in the confidence and com- fort of which he dieth. "For we walk by faith, not by sight. We groan to be clothed upon with our heavénly house. Where- fore we labor, that, whetherpresent or absent, we may be accepted of him; " 2 Cor. v. 7 -9. "Now the just shall live by faith ; " Heb. x. 38. " Now faith is the substance ofthings hoped for, the evidence of things not seen ;" Heb. xi. 1. Most of the examples in Heb. xi. do show you this truth, that true Christians live and govern their actions by the firm belief of the promise of God, and
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